“B b b b b but Labour”. Yawn. How long do the Tories have to be in power before they start bearing responsibility for the absolute shitshow that is the state of this country’s public services?
Yes PFIs are shit. That’s why Labour post 2015 has been opposed to them. Tell me why the Tories didn’t stop them?
Why did the Tories continue to slash beds, to the point where we have half as many in hospitals today as thirty years ago (the Tories having been in power for the majority of the last 30 years I might add)?
Why have the Tories serviced deep cuts to the social care sector? Something which forces people who would normally be cared for in that sector in to the care of a deeply stretched NHS. “But funding of the NHS is the highest it’s always been” because of inflation, that’s all, demand has continued to rise as population has been ageing and growing, treatments have become more expensive, and the aforementioned social care sectors cuts have caused further demand, but NHS funding has remained simply ahead of inflation.
And don’t get me started on the stealth privatisation. Why the #### was a private company doing my MRI scans in an NHS hospital? Why is a private company able to profit from the NHS? Every penny of profit that company makes is money being taken out of the NHS. The tax and national insurance we pay to fund people’s care is lining shareholder pockets.
The internal markets need scrapping, the competition and lack of cooperation between trusts needs scrapping, PFI debts need wiping out (if they weren’t included in the debt wipeout that was righty done by the current government, look I’m praising them for the one good thing they did), middle management needs to be shrunk and ward care needs to be put back in to the hands of head nurses, and private companies need to be removed from the whole thing.
The NHS is a state, it doesn’t have to be. The Tories should take the majority of the blame for that. Not 100%, no, but at the same time as the party in government they are the only ones with any power to change anything.